4.  The applicant, Mrs Alla Zakharovna Kirsanova, is a Russian national, who was born in 1955 and lives in the village of Novoselye of the Lomonosovskiy District of the Leningradskiy Region.
5.  On 28 May 1997 the St-Petersburg City Council (“the City Council”, Администрация Санкт-Петербурга) took a decision to grant the applicant’s family the right to reside in a flat situated in the village of Novoselye. It appears that soon after the applicant moved in, she discovered that the flat had been built with constructional defects.
6.  On 14 September 1998 the applicant and her family members filed a civil claim against a private company which had built the flat in question in the Lomonosovskiy District Court of the Leningradskiy Region, (“the Lomonosovskiy District Court”, Ломоносовский районный суд Ленинградской области). They demanded compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses allegedly caused by the faulty construction of the applicant’s flat.
7.  The application and supporting documents reached the Lomonosovskiy District Court on 16 September 1998.
8.  The date of the first hearing in the case was fixed on 16 February 1999. The applicant submits that the hearing did not take place as the Lomonosovskiy District Court registrar had mailed the summons to the parties only on 15 February 1999 and, as a result, the summons arrived too late. The summons and postal envelopes were submitted to the Court by the applicant. From the postal stamps it follows that the summons were indeed dispatched on 15 February 1999.
9.  According to the Government, the hearing of 16 February 1999 did not take place due to the parties’ failure to appear. They further submitted that the parties had not excused their absence and that the hearing had been postponed accordingly.
10.  The hearings scheduled for 2 April, 25 June, 15 October, 19 November 1999 and 14 January 2000 did not take place either.
11.  The Government submitted that the hearing of 2 April 1999 had not taken place due to the absence of a judge and the hearing of 25 June 1999 had been adjourned because of the non-attendance of the respondents. As regards the hearing of 15 October 1999, the Government submitted that it had been adjourned by reference to decision to change procedural status of the respondents, whilst the hearings of 19 November 1999 and 14 January 2000 had not taken place because of the judge’s involvement in another set of proceedings.
12.  According to the applicant, the hearings of 19 January and 8 February 2000 were conducted in the absence of the defendant who failed to appear.
13.  According to the Government, these hearings did not take place due to the parties’ failure to appear.
14.  On 21 February 2000 the applicant amended her claims to the effect that the City Council became a principal defendant in the case whereas the private company which had built a flat became a third party. The applicant now also demanded the court to annul the City Council decision of 28 May 1997.
15.  Since the defendant in the case changed, on 3 March 2000 the case was transferred for examination to the Admiralteyskiy District Oktyabrskiy Federal Court of St-Petersburg (“the Admiralteyskiy District Court”, Октябрьский федеральный суд Адмиралтейского района Санкт-Петербурга).
16.  The case reached the Admiralteyskiy District Court on 24 March 2000.
17.  On 24 May 2000 the applicant amended her claim again; her family now demanded a new flat instead of the old one and more damages.
18.  It appears that the applicant simultaneously lodged a number of complaints in connection with her housing problem with various State bodies. On an unspecified date a local Prosecutor’s Office responded to the applicant’s complaint and requested the case-file from the Admiralteyskiy District Court for examination. It appears that between June and October 2000 the hearings in the case could not go on as the case-file was under examination at the local Prosecutor’s Office.
19.  The hearing scheduled for 7 December 2000 was adjourned until 5 February 2001 because the new defendant, the City Council, had not been properly notified of the case. On 5 February 2001 the court adjourned the hearing on the motion of the parties as certain documents were lacking. The hearings of 27 February and 23 May 2001 did not take place for the same reason.
20.  According to the Government, at the hearing of 5 February 2001 the applicant invited the court to request a number of documents from various organisations. The hearings of 27 February and 23 May 2001 could have taken place if not for the applicant’s request and the failure of the above organisations to respond.
21.  On 10 August 2001 the applicant failed to appear due to illness and the hearing was re-scheduled. On 15 November 2001 the applicant once again amended the claim; she increased the amount of damages sought. The hearing was adjourned for the parties to be able to prepare accordingly.
22.  Upon the defendants’ motion, on 29 November 2001 the court ordered a technical expert examination of the applicant’s flat. Once the examination was terminated, the proceedings resumed. The hearing of 8 April 2002 was adjourned on the defendant’s motion and the next hearing did not take place until 22 October 2002.
23.  On 22 October 2002 the Admiralteyskiy District Court rendered the judgment in which it partly granted the applicant’s claim. The court quashed the decision of 28 May 1997, ordered the City Council to grant the applicant’s family another flat, recovered the applicant’s legal costs and dismissed the remainder of the claims.
24.  The parties appealed against the judgment of 22 October 2002 to the St-Petersburg City Court (“the City Court”, Судебная коллегия по гражданским делам Санкт-Петербургского городского суда).
25.  On 14 May 2003 the City Court examined the parties’ appeals and overturned the first instance judgment in part, dismissing the applicant’s claims in full.
26.  The court noted that the City Council was under no obligation whatsoever to provide a flat to the applicant’s family, let alone a flat of a particular quality. It further found that there was nothing to suggest that the applicant’s family had been unaware of the defects of flat in question from the outset and that they could not have rejected the offer made to them in 1997.
27.  Furthermore, the court also suggested that the proper remedy in respect of the applicant’s housing problem was an action for elimination of defects, and not a claim for another flat.
28.  Thereafter the applicant challenged the City Court decision of 14 May 2003 by way of supervisory review, but to no avail. Her respective applications were rejected by the City Court and the Supreme Court on 4 July 2003 and on 21 May 2004 accordingly.
29.  On several occasions, between 1997 and 2002, the applicant complained about the excessive length of the case to the prosecutors and higher courts, requesting them to speed up the proceedings. It appears that these applications were to no avail.